Sep 8, 2022 | Blog
Dinner in Rome: A History of the World in One Meal Andreas Viestad, translated by Matt Bagguley Reaktion Books, pp. 240, £15 Farmer, restaurateur, critic, foodie activist, traveller (he’s worked in Zimbabwe as well as South Africa), cookery book writer, longtime TV...
Jun 10, 2022 | Blog
Young Bloomsbury: The Generation that Reimagined Love, Freedom and Self-Expression by Nino Strachey Two Roads, £25, pp.348 It’s been a century since the heyday of the Bloomsbury Group and now Nino Strachey, a descendant of one of the key Bloomsbury families, has...
Dec 17, 2021 | Blog
Coffee HousePoliticsEconomyWorldCultureLifeMagazine Magazine Issue: 18 December 2021 More from Books Paul Levy Don’t be seduced by fake truffle oil this Christmas Rowan Jacobsen guides us through the varieties, from the Italian white Alba to the black summer truffle...
Oct 22, 2021 | Blog
There’s a bit of a hidden treasure, if not quite on my doorstep, then only an hour’s drive away towards the Cotswolds. Compton Verney is an historic manor and parish, with a Grade-I listed country house, redesigned by Robert Adam in the 1760s and landscaped by...
Oct 19, 2021 | Blog
I could not at first remember why I bore a grudge against the late Angela Carter. But a rapid search turned up, as its first item, a review in The London Review of Books for 24 January 1985, of The Official Foodie Handbook by Ann Barr and me. The piece is uninformed,...
Jun 28, 2021 | Blog
Edward Mortimer, foreign affairs journalist who became Kofi Annan’s speechwriter at the UN– obituary His ability to listen intently to opposing arguments contributed to the style of Annan’s leadership ByTelegraph Obituaries27 June 2021 • 10:00pm Edward Mortimer, who...
Jun 28, 2021 | Blog
A beautiful book, but a fairly orthodox biography of the Hon. Stephen “Tommy” Tomlin Bloomsbury Stud: The Life of Stephen “Tommy” Tomlin by Michael Bloch and Susan Fox M.A.B., £40.00 Despite its pornography–promising title, Bloomsbury Stud is a fairly orthodox...
Jun 23, 2021 | Blog
The Amazon delivery guy rang the bell, then scampered off to safety behind the garden gate, a good distance, but not so far that he couldn’t hear and acknowledge my “thank you.” My wife is so far coping with her duties as a Parish Counsellor by attending meetings...
May 18, 2021 | Blog
Norman Kolpas argues that overfeeding geese mimics what pre-migratory birds do naturally, and our disapproval betrays an ignorance of bird physiology Foie Gras: A Global History Norman Kolpas Reaktion Books, pp. 152, £10.99 In his excellent, brief chronicle of foie...
May 18, 2021 | Blog
A central figure in the group that included Paul and Jane Bowles, he lived in a mud hut in the Marrakesh oasis with a Dutch baroness John Hopkins, who has died aged 83, was an American novelist and diarist, best known for The Tangier Diaries, a literary history of...
